The Global Warming Foundation put out a piece of work yesterday claiming that 6 offshore wind farms share Ā£1.6bn between them in annual subsidies. It went on to argue that the renewables obligation now costs consumers Ā£6bn a year and the capacity market Ā£1bn a year. They object to income transfers to the wealthy they think own the windfarms from lower income consumers and are worried about grid stabilisation with more intermmittent wind power.
Clearly there is a price for making capacity available whatever the fuel. The costs also depend on which power station and fuel type of allowed to run the most, which affects the unit costs of power delivered. I have not had chance yet to check these figures, but would be interested in reactions to them, as they do show high costs and prices which makes the U.K. less competitive and is hard on family budgets.
April 17, 2021
Indeed and this for intermittent electricity that is worth far less than on demand electricity anyway. Plus the market rigging forcing its use. Furthermore wind turbines need masses of fossil fuel to manufacture, install and maintain them.
Borisās dad Stanley was on Spectator TV talking green lunacy on Thusday (English Oxon.) so not a clue.
Asked what would replace gas boilers he said āone of them is hydrogen based technology and the other ground heat pumpsā. I assume he means hydrogen burning gas boilers and ground source heat pumps.
So where Stanley is the hydrogen coming from without generating CO2? Using wind farm electricity to split water up is hugely wasteful & economic insanity. As to ground source heat pumps they are very capital intensive and need larger more tepid radiators too. Quite an issue especially with retrofit. Also, although you might get 2.5 times the heat per KWH of electricity, electric is more than 2.5 times the price of gas plus far higher maintenance and capital costs.
April 17, 2021
It was an extraordinarily tedious interview on what is normally a good programme. Andrew Neil challenged Borisās dad (there is surely no other reason he was on) on the leader of extinction rebellionās claim that global warming is going to ākill 6 billion peopleā. Mr Johnson snr was asked where in the scientific literature we see evidence for this. Of course there is none. It is complete and utter scientific hogwash.
The figures I have seen is that the total cost of subsidising renewal energy in the U.K. is now Ā£10bn pa, and household electricity is 35% more expensive and business electricity 60% more expensive than it otherwise would be.
April 17, 2021
Indeed, and it does not even save any or any significant CO2. Electricity and gas are nearly double the cost of many of our competitors. We are just exporting jobs, industries and their associated CO2 production overseas and freezing lots of poor people and pensioners in the process. Plus CO2 plant food is not even a real problem anyway. A net positive on balance.
April 17, 2021
John says that it’s “hard on family budgets”.
Surely the hardest things of all for many to meet are the rents or repayments caused by this Tory-created, promoted, and maintained residential housing bubble, besides which energy costs are almost trivial by comparison?
April 18, 2021
Martin, House prices are high because of the laws of supply and demand, like any other good. Encouraging some of the (probable) 15+ million immigrants to return home, and stopping all immigration for a decade, will cut house prices by reducing demand. In the meantime high house prices are no excuse for high energy bills. But thanks for the hand waving.
April 17, 2021
Once again our economy and domestic energy bills would have been better if this government had done nothing ā once again their intervention has made things worst
April 17, 2021
Talking of not a clue, maybe you should read the Forbes report about the production of green hydrogen and the consortium looking to massively scale up production and get its costs down to competitive levels for industry.
Another post from you where the future doesnāt exist.and the usual meaningless obsession with qualifications.
April 17, 2021
If you generate even expensive electricity with wind then use it make āgreen hydrogenā you can be certain it will be hugely expensive compared to say natural gas and very wasteful too. Such are the laws of physics that are rather unlikely to change for politicians. Even worse if you then burn the green hydrogen to fuel cars or convert it back to electricity in a fuel cell. Hydrogen is just a rather energy inefficient battery (with big storage issues too) and not a source of power really. No hydrogen mines that I know of.
As to qualifications I find the less people know about maths, physics, energy, engineering and energy economics the more they ābelieveā in this mad agenda. The main BBC alarmists and reporters on these issues have degrees in Geography, English and Environmental Science and non seems to have a clue. Often even confusing power with energy.
April 17, 2021
The laws of physics are rather unlikely to change. Perhaps some battery or other technology breakthroughs will happen and that will become the best way forward as better and more economic. Politicians demanding technology breakthroughs is idiotic. They did not ban horses people found they preferred cars, trains & trucks, powered ships, aircraft…
April 17, 2021
True, but the “Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894” led (after an international conference) to a massive change in urban transport in less than a couple of decades.
April 17, 2021
Just a free supply of fertiliser surely?
April 17, 2021
Nig L,
āthe usual meaningless obsession with qualifications.ā
One person yawning in a room can cause others to do likewise.
I have started to notice references to degree subject/university now feature in posts not initiated by Mr. Lifelogic.
His phrase āgreencrapā is already common parlance on here.
April 17, 2021
green hydrogen? – I thought it was colourless!
April 18, 2021
I prefer to trust costings that come from industry consultants who earn a living by being accurate over journalists who copy/paste the latest propaganda press releases. Therefore I go with the estimates of Timera and others that green hydrogen costs about 10 times as much as methane, a figure which can be substantially verified with modest research into the technology.
April 17, 2021
Agreed LL. I understand that air heat pumps have the same problems. Larger radiators needed, Max temperature below 60 degrees and have to be kept running more or less constantly to
stay warm.
April 17, 2021
Exactly so very inefficient if you do not use the property all the time like a second home or if you are out all day or go away regularly.
April 17, 2021
Air source heat pumps are usually worse as when you need the heat most it is usually fairly freezing air outside. Whereas the ground temps below the surface might still be at about 10 degrees C, so rather less “heat pumping” is required. Can work well in summer for swimming pools though, where air temp is often close the the pool temp.
April 17, 2021
You offer up Boris Johnson’s dad as a font of UK energy knowledge and strategy? Seriously?
I wonder if you even read the GWF note or are simply reacting to John’s red rag.
April 17, 2021
Dixie, well I read what is written by Dr John Constable on a regular basis and particularly the figures for Scottish windfarms as I lived there for many years and were surrounded by the noisy, ugly things. The figures are mind blowing. The amount of money earnt for switching off is staggering. The Scottish government is obsessed with wind power and the local councils are powerless to stop the damned things as planning up there takes the views of the council and local residents into account very rarely. It costs the council thousands to go to appeal. The developers can afford the best lawyers and the figures for noise generated by the turbines is massaged in their favour.
It’s amazing the lengths they go to to cover up noise during the monitoring process. It is heartbreaking to see first hand the destruction of ancient peat bogs, woodland and wild habitats to be replaced with concrete and steel which is lethal to birds and bats. They employ people to pick up carcasses. The costs to consumers is enormous and it seems to me there is a regular rise in electricity prices now. Only last week I had an email from my provider telling me my electricity will cost 9% more. We will always need backup from a reliable source. Windfarms are an expensive abomination and a dangerous blight to our wildlife on land and at sea.
April 17, 2021
Dr John Constable publishes great information about costs for wind farms on the Renewable Energy Foundation site. This is a registered charity promoting sustainable development for the benefit of the public by means of energy conservation and the use of renewable energy to which end they publish several online data bases relating to performance and efficiency of renewable energy. Together with GWF they provide very interesting figures showing the folly of green energy.
April 18, 2021
In 2020 some Ā£274m was spent curtailing about 3.7TWh of wind generation. It is still relatively small beer compared with how it will grow as we install more wind capacity, as the frequency of periods when the wind is blowing strongly and generating more than the grid can use, and the extent of such surpluses, will increase sharply. I estimate that by the time we get to 50GW of wind, curtailment will be about 10 times as much, with some 60% of the output of the marginal new wind farm effectively curtailed. That means that the effective cost will be 2.5 times as great (since it must earn its income from 40% of its output potential), so even if the uncurtailed average cost was as low as Ā£40/MWh, the curtailed cost paid by consumers would be Ā£100/MWh.
April 17, 2021
No I was pointing out that just like most art graduates and Climate Alarmists he does not have a clue.
April 17, 2021
No you were using his response, rather than something from someone engaged in the topic, as an excuse for your usual theatrical rant.
April 17, 2021
He who is always contemptuous invites contempt.
April 17, 2021
Dixie, It’s the GWPF.
April 17, 2021
What is the sense in switching from burning fossil fuels, which produce CO2 which is said to be undesirable because it is a “greenhouse gas”, to burning hydrogen which then produces water vapour reported to be, by far, the most prevalent “greenhouse gas”?
April 17, 2021
For pity’s sake.
Read up on the subject.
April 18, 2021
Martin, For pity’s sake why don’t you read up on the subject? Water vapour covers the bulk of the re-radiated infra red spectrum, where CO2 is only responsible for a couple of extremely narrow responses in the bandwidth. And you can’t do anything about water vapour – or are you suggesting we drain the oceans?
April 17, 2021
lots more water vapour? – seems like England will always be covered in cloud! That will ruin any gains in solar panels.
April 17, 2021
On where is the H2 might come from … Israeli and Italian researchers have developed a solar panel that does not act as a PV cell but splits H2 and O2 from water directly. The bottleneck was what to do with the O2 as that isn’t a very interesting element so they looked at using it in a secondary process to produce dyes and flavourings.
The point is you don’t “waste” energy with electricity as an intermediary (as that seems to be your axe) nor generate CO2. Instead it provides stored , dispatchable energy and it is a scalable process – one panel or a thousand, so could be sited anywhere.
This is just one example of R&D efforts to try to address looming resource constraints. The question for you and others is what are you going to do – will you continue with your unfettered depletion of resources at the cost to present and near future generations while undermining and/or bad mouthing any attempts to find solutions. Or, will you do something constructive.
April 18, 2021
I am all in favour of sensible R&D just not early roll out of duff technology with tax payer subsidies and market manipulation,
April 18, 2021
.. just so long as someone else pays for the R&D, does the work and carries the risk eh LifeLogic?
April 18, 2021
… and you get to decide what is “sensible”
April 18, 2021
How much space is required for these panels to produce say 1 tonne of hydrogen a day? I read that these systems are only about 1% efficient in converting solar energy to hydrogen. That makes them completely impractical, as they would occupy far more space that the ~40-50% efficient process via solar PV, which are poor enough.
April 18, 2021
I’ve just started looking into this, depending on the technology I believe efficiency ranges from 3.6 – 17% efficiency. In 2019 a Belgian group announced a panel that could produce 250 litres per day and I believe it was twice the size of a normal domestic pv panel. Not sure of tonnage, my house uses around 10m3 per day in the coldest month which is 10k litres so would need several panels , maybe 4, generating and storing H2 over a year to cover the coldest, sunless days. But there have been days where even though it has been cold enough to need the heating on the PV panels have heated our water sufficiently.
April 17, 2021
Lifelogic, All true. But you are using facts and reason to argue against the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) belief system. CAGW is a substitute religion to give believers a source of meaning in their lives. If it were not so, installing intermittent electricity supplies at about twice the cost of CCGT (windmills + back-ups) would be seen for what it is – irrational.
April 17, 2021
Quite!
April 17, 2021
Exactly
April 18, 2021
If you ignore the CO2 hate lobby and concentrate on fuel – what fuel does your CCGT use, where does it come from, how reliable is the supply, what does it cost and how will those factors change in the future.
April 17, 2021
Having worked in the offshore industry, it is, in the very basic sense of the word, a racket.
Using the ābogey man/ end of the worldā to harvest wealth from the āpeasant classā to transfer to companies, who for the large part are foreign.
All could be done far cheaper, more efficiently and with far smaller footprints on our lives with combined cycle GT plants.
Any new power source needs to be measured (without taxes/subsidies to fake the result) against this cost base.
It is a scam within a wider scam….
April 17, 2021
Hear Hear +1
April 17, 2021
@
April 17, 2021
Agree +1 (we need to follow the money – our domestic energy bills aren’t cheaper)
April 17, 2021
Good post.
April 17, 2021
Exactly.
April 17, 2021
Ask yourselves, where does all the money paid to the Paris Climate Accord scam go? Control of the masses, World Economic Forum great reset.
April 17, 2021
Another pot boiler. Follow the money and check who is benefitting and what influence, lobbying, has been employed to achieve it. If it isn’t money it is a continuation of political direction from the EU via our EU oriented decision makers. When last I looked most of our electricity supply companies were owned in the EU. Dangerous for a country making its sovereign way. As dangerous as Russia’s pending control of Germany’s gas power supply.
We in turn have failed to silence the great unwashed extinction rebellion and associates who have denied us the use of inexpensive power via fracked gas and would no doubt hold sway in the use of small unit , Rolls Royce atomic power electricity generation.
You all had a hint of cyber vunerability over G5. The more we concentrate power generation in limited hands and for that matter the more we concentrate on one type of power the more vulnerable it is to attack. That war is current. It will make leaves on the track very passe.
April 17, 2021
Agree ā 68 million people donāt like the current direction of travel to higher bills and the electrification of everything ā however 650 MPs would vote for anything if it had a green sticker on it
April 17, 2021
At the next election there is going to be a very cheap remedy to all this expensive green energy, don’t vote for them. Do you vote for someone who is going to stick you with Ā£20k of expenditure or make your house unsaleable , or do you put your cross against someone who won’t. Not a tough call.
April 17, 2021
It does seem to be true that a majority of MPs will vote for any old uninformed nonsense emanating out of Downing St.
April 18, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
A different study I read stated that that the 2020 wind farm auctions were the first negative subsidy, in other words would pay back the government over the life of the contract, short term pain, long term gain? There is no doubt that the price of renewables is coming down rapidly to compete/better fossil fuels as technology improves, larger turbines for instance, and that will continue.
Solar equipment should be VAT free as long as manufactured in the U.K., the employment generated and the tax there of plus tax on company profits offsetting the VAT loss.
As for impact on our competitive ability, suggest you look at corporation tax increases and as far as family budgets eye watering council tax rises, I cannot recall your criticism of those and 40 billion plus on a āuseless test and trace system plus the overspend on PPE and why not throw in 20 billion on smart meters whilst we are about it.
Talk about family finances, the average estate duty payment in the South East is Ā£240k ish set to rise through stealth taxes and of course something that the Tories have ā liedā to the public about since Osborne used it to take the wind out of Browns sails. This money would have gone down to the next generation to help them on the property ladder etc.
As for the GWFs report interesting but so what? They do an excellent job recently highlighting the BBCs lies on the subject but no one is listening with the topic subject to a vast media censorship campaign especially in America. This report will get little traction.
April 17, 2021
You say that the average IHT charge a family pays in the south of England is ca. Ā£240k. I find it difficult to believe the typically well-heeled classes such as high-earners and city slickers. There must be a way around it.
April 17, 2021
If you own a house worth 800k and have 200k in savings/investments, as I understand it, you will pay tax on 1 million less the allowance of Ā£340k (? something like that). So you’d pay tax on Ā£660k.
April 18, 2021
Plenty of ways round it give the money away and survive 7 years, invest in farm land, trading companies, some AIM shares gift it all to your younger wife, legal partner. But most people do not know exactly when they will die.
April 18, 2021
Nig1, Don’t count your “negative subsidies” before they are realised. These CFD auctions are little more than predictions based on the false belief that windmills are getting cheaper to install and run. And rely on the government bailing them out when things go wrong.
Professor Gordon Hughes, has compiled data from audited accounts on the capital and operating costs of the 350 largest onshore and offshore wind farms in the UK, showing both have increased over the last couple of decades. Offshore windmills in particular are subject to high maintenance costs and shorter than expected lives.
April 18, 2021
CFD payments only occur when the company building a wind farm triggers them. The penalty for failing to trigger is not a credible deterrent if market prices look like being higher than the CFD level – the choice between rotating blackouts and higher costs will see politicians ensuring the latter. Aside from that, there are sources of revenue that are not subject to the CFD – for example, REGO certificates that are used to greenwash our supplies. Just as with the Renewables Obligation, it would not be too difficult to bail out wind farms by forcing a high price for these by creating an artificial shortage. There is no sign that wind farm costs are in reality falling as fast as the CFD prices have done – in fact, recent reports suggest they are rising again. I calculate that the average market value of offshore wind farm power in 2020, based on the prices used for the CFD calculation was just Ā£34.54/MWh. That is still some way below the lowest CFD value which is Ā£47.20/MWh for the Dogger Bank future project, expected to cost Ā£6bn to build, or Ā£2.5m/MW for the first 2.4GW and not due onstream until 2026 according to the company.
Meanwhile we will still be paying for all the earlier projects at their much inflated prices. The average paid to offshore wind farms under CFDs in 2020 was Ā£162.65/MWh according to the Low Carbon Contracts Company data, so the CFD subsidy was worth Ā£128.11/MWh after allowing for the Ā£34.54/MWh market value of output.
April 19, 2021
According to their accounts, the capital cost of the 1.2GW Hornsea wind farm was approximately Ā£3.7bn, or just over Ā£3m/MW. It has a CFD that pays Ā£164.96/MWh currently. The Dogger Bank wind farm is due on stream in 2026, at a cost of Ā£2.5m/MW according to their website. Its CFD is currently valued at Ā£47.20/MWh, which does not seem sufficient to pay for it, yet is still well above the average Ā£34.54/MWh market value of output of CFD funded offshore windfarms in 2020 according to Low Carbon Contracts Company data.
April 17, 2021
It is worth recalling that the Climate Change Act, the reason for this hugely expensive switch to “renewable” energy, was the product of extremely effective lobbying. Indeed one of its most effective advocates (a member of Friends of the Earth) was even hired by the Department of Energy to write the first draft of the Bill that eventually became the Act. Furthermore she was even rewarded with a peerage, a member of the House of Lords no less, as Baroness Worthington. We are all paying heavily for the privilege. Lobbying is nothing new. Neither are the costs inflicted upon us all when it succeeds
April 17, 2021
Both diary entries today suggest to me that here in the UK there is a great political market gap waiting to be filled by a party manifestoed to do so. None of the present parties come near because they carry too much vested interest baggage.
List the wrongs and ommissions that have appeared in this diary over the last five years and you have that manifesto.
Don’t tell me it cannot be done. Nigel Farage very ably demonstrated in spades the exact opposite in extracting us from the EU. He sold the concept of a free sovereign UK to the electorate and delivered it so effectively it continues to damage the health of a few of our contributors to this day.
So there you have it diarists, a new party created to correct the identified errors. I can see the establishment running to their armoury as I write.
April 17, 2021
I don’t see the establishment running anywhere. The sort of people suitable as candidates in your new party won’t want to leave their successful businesses to run for parliament.
April 17, 2021
@agricola; If anything UKIP kept us in the EU, we do not need so much a new political party but an effective and organised campaign to expose the fake claims of the climate campaigners, after all it was our host and his colleagues in the ERG who not only exposed the falsehoods of the EU but in doing so obtained a change in party policy that became Brexit.
You do not make better (political) gruel by diluting the pot still further!
April 17, 2021
Except that during the Referendum campaign, Jerry, the Leave campaign was opposed by David Cameron’s Conservative government. Remember the Conservative government white booklet advocating Remain? So much for your “change in party policy that became Brexit”. There was no change in Conservative party policy until after our vote to Leave, and because of our vote to Leave. And we still haven’t fully left anyway – Northern Ireland remains under EU control, as do our fishing grounds.
April 17, 2021
@NickC; Oh do stop bleating, you really do need to take those political blinkers off, face the facts for once!
Had it not been for our host and the ERG, had it not been for David Cameron (and indeed Nick Clegg…), there would have been no Brexit Referendum. Change had to come via MPs at Westminster, not MEPs in Brussels, how many MPs did UKIP ever have at Westminster, at best two, one more than the Green party, most of the time UKIP had none and thus little or zero influence where it mattered.
April 18, 2021
Jerry said: “NickC; Oh do stop bleating, you really do need to take those political blinkers off . . .”
Oh, the irony!!
All Conservative governments from 1970 to 2016 opposed leaving the EU, and thus supported Remain, as a matter of policy. There was no change in that policy until after our vote to Leave, despite your claim. David Cameron had the Referendum because he thought he could win it – for Remain! George Osbourne (Tory Chancellor) opposed the Referendum ironically because he had more accurately gauged the strength of the Leave opposition (led by UKIP) in the country to the Conservative party’s Remain policy.
April 18, 2021
@NickC; Thank you for your opinion, for that is all you offer, the FACTS and history books tell us something quite different.
“despite your claim. David Cameron had the Referendum because he thought he could win it”
Stop lying, I said nothing of the sort, I merely pointed out a fact, Mr Cameron (as PM) offered the UK a EU membership referendum, bringing a Bill before Parliament to facilitate it.
“because he had more accurately gauged the strength of the Leave opposition (led by UKIP) in the country
Nonsense but, if a rabble outside of Westminster can change govt policy, perhaps you need to be more than a little worried by your own assertions, after all the hard left has always traditionally raise a larger crowd…
April 17, 2021
Nah. UKIP polled as the biggest party in the 2014 EU elections. That had Cameron terrified that the Tories were about to be wiped out in the 2015 election. Hence, the referendum. The only reason we are half out is UKIP.
April 18, 2021
+1
April 18, 2021
@Mike Wilson; The actual facts are some what different from those written by UKIP on their own memorial stone…
UKIP were never in any position to change or challenge, had UKIP ‘wiped out’ the Tory party in the 2015 General election it would have either caused a grand coalition between broadly europhile parties or an outright majority to a very europhile Labour party – other than hard UKIP supporters, people who wanted a referendum, wanted Brexit, understood this and that is why the Tory party lead by Mr Cameron won a clear majority at that election.
April 18, 2021
Indeed, but as long as FPTP is maintained as the voting system there is little chance that a new party able to change things will arise in the HoC.
April 17, 2021
Agricola,
There is a gap in the market for a new political party. The problem is establishing such a party. Nigel Farage had one task, to which he devoted many decades, but he has now left politics.
A first step might be to destroy the current Conservative party and replace it with a party that delivers what the electorate want rather than providing an easy entry to politics for public school types.
April 17, 2021
All that has to happen is for every current Conservative Party member to leave and join ‘The Real Conservative Party’.
April 17, 2021
@Peter; Thanks for making me check on Mr Farage’s current employment status, you are correct, he has left politics, and if the article in the Guardian and a companies Press Release are true, it makes for some very interesting readings! The Press Release certainly got me checking the date, no, it wasn’t April 1st…
As for your second point, without the Conservative Party do not think a majority of the British electorate would vote for a UKIP style party, with the LibDems again to the left of the current Labour Party only those with blinkers on can miss the obvious outcome…
April 18, 2021
Jerry, Vote Tory, get woke.
April 18, 2021
@NickC; Funny, I though it was all the people voting UKIP that caused the 2010 coalition?…
April 17, 2021
Iād vote for an alternative but real conservative party
April 17, 2021
Lovely comment there, Agricola, and, like any self improvement programme, there are certain essentials which can be identified and acted upon.
Why is it that the obvious is always the impossible where politicians are involved? Back in the ā80s we did see āthe real thingā, our host playing a key part.
āGreenā used to infer a naive and inexperienced individual. Whatās changed.
April 17, 2021
Agricola . I like and support Farage but the UK Establishment will ensure Nigel Farage never gains a seat of power. Like Donald Trump he is not part of the swamp.
April 17, 2021
Corky thinks boondoggle is the most excellent American slang. Climate apocalypse is the greatest boondoggle is the history of mankind since the pyramids, which didn’t even have cat flaps.
April 17, 2021
They didnāt need cat flaps! Mummified cats!!
Agree re boondoggle.
Fraudulent and wasteful.
April 17, 2021
There were no cat flaps in the pyramids because they didnāt want them to escape. It was thought they brought good luck to those that housed them, hence good luck to the pharaohs in their after life.
April 17, 2021
Took a while to find the GWF note dated May 14 John mentions, I’d put up a link but these are problematic so a search for “global warming foundation hornsea farm subsidies” should find a link.
The question that came to mind was “is this a complete story, what is this relative to”?
For example, according to a New York Times article (December 12, 2020) Boris Johnson “pledged to end taxpayer support for overseas fossil fuel projects” where the cost to UK taxpayers is/was estimated at Ā£16 billion a year.
That article includes;
“Both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Energy Agency have called on countries to curb or stop government subsidies for fossil fuel. An independent scorecard estimates Britainās total public support for fossil fuel projects at $16 billion a year.”
– the scorecard was by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
So can we have some balance and transparency on this issue instead of red rags for amateur dramatics from the likes of LifeLogic
April 17, 2021
I would like to see Johnson’s calculations as I don’t have much confidence in the computations of people who decide when first they are confronted with decimals at school to focus on Arts subjects. Giving tax relief for exploration to companies which pay net taxes overall is distinctly more beneficial to the taxpayer than not having the jobs or the tax take in order to propitiate the adherents of the global warming hoax.
April 17, 2021
Dixie, What has anything you mention got to do with the facts that Wind is both intermittent and more costly (often via hidden subsidies, and including the necessary back-up) than straightforward, reliable Coal or Gas fired electricity production?
The government’s own press release announced: “in the last four years, the government supported Ā£21 billion of UK oil and gas exports through trade promotion and export finance“. That’s not Ā£21bn of subsidies (nor Ā£16bn, nor $16bn), it is primarily export finance insurance. See
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-the-uk-will-end-support-for-fossil-fuel-sector-overseas
April 17, 2021
@NickC, my reply is to John’s topic and to the article he cites which says absolutely nothing about the intermittent nature of wind power but focuses on the taxpayer funded subsidy. Maybe other GWF material raises the intermittent nature but the cited publication does not.
As to what HMG subsidy actually is of Oil & Gas, clearly it is in the billions from the UK taxpayer which Boris has fessed up to (commenters on here have been adamant there is no UK subsidy) and different sources calculate the amounts differently.
April 18, 2021
Dixie, But my reply was to what you said. What part of “supported Ā£21 bn of UK oil and gas exports through trade promotion and export finance” don’t you understand? The principal is the insured amount for exports, not a subsidy.
And do you really have to be told that wind is intermittent?
April 18, 2021
No, you ticked me off for not addressing your concern of intermittency rather than the key point John had made about enormous subsidies to one part of the energy sector while ignore the subsidies being made to other parts.
I am well aware that wind is intermittent but what has that to do with the blog topic about taxpayer subsidies?
April 18, 2021
A more accurate description of refusing to back overseas fossil fuel projects would be this assessment:
And I suspect that the projects will get taken over by China to help supply its voracious energy appetite, diminishing Western influence and surrendering to the Belt and Road.
April 17, 2021
As someone who has worked in the power industry for over 40 years, I can assure you that windmills are the biggest con trick ever.
Our forefathers quickly learned that wind was unpredictable and unreliable and so is power generation.
The majority are owned and maintained by foreign companies taking huge subsidies from the working class.
This is wealth transfer on an industrial scale.
Electric vehicles are the next stupid step to running the little man off the road so the great and good can whizz about the deserted roads and fly whenever they wish after we are all bankrupt.
PPE running the economy is a disaster and Germany knows this, hence 18 new coal fired power stations.
Wake up before it’s too late.
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
So true Ian.
April 17, 2021
Ian, like you I spent a working life in power stations, retiring as Engineering Manager in a major installation.
I agree with all you say here.
Unfortunately Contributor Nig 1 clearly has no understanding of how the industry works.
The G WPF produces fine work from knowledgeable sources. I commend their work to anyone wishing to know more about energy production, transmission and distribution.
April 17, 2021
Syd, Well said, thank you for your knowledge and expertise.
April 17, 2021
According to BNEF (Bloomberg) 70 million motorized two-wheelers were produced and sold in 2018, 30% of those were EVs and the majority in Asia. Sounds like a lot of people were getting on the road, just not in the motorized living rooms we in the West have grown accustomed to.
Change is inevitable, the question is will we fight any change at all and simply become victims or instead try to move it in a direction that at least partially suits us.
April 17, 2021
Dixie, But is your “change” good or bad? That is the issue. Was the push for diesel cars good or bad? At the time the green lobby said the “change” was good; but it was apparent even then that the pollution from diesels was being overlooked in the blind rush to (supposedly) reduce CO2.
Thus far you have signally failed to make a rational case for either Windmills or BEVs, so we cannot tell from your comments whether either are good or bad in your view. But you only need to look at your own fuel bills to see that Electricity is about five times the cost of Gas (natural methane). Converting all my fuel to electricity results in a five-fold cost increase. To me that is very bad indeed.
April 18, 2021
How good or bad a change is depends on the individual so if change is happening it is for the individual to decide how they will react or adapt.
I didn’t previously get a diesel car because of the green lobby, I got it to have a wider set of fuel options because I didn’t believe oil dependency was sustainable. I still don’t and that was one of the reasons I switched to an EV.
I don’t agree with the CO2 is evil brigade but I don’t believe relyiance on taking oil out of someone else’s ground is at all sustainable. We need to be as independent in energy as possible so that means nuclear, renewables and reliance on natural gas only as a medium term intermediate step.
Unlike many commenters here I don’t see personal transport as the issue, BEV works fine for me but is clearly an issue for some whether for irrational or rational reasons. Instead, the big problems we need to solve are domestic heating and consistent supply for infrastructure and industry. I don’t think this will be achieved using one magic fuel (gas) nor with generation in a few places, instead we’ll need a distributed solution with multiple generation and storage technologies.
April 17, 2021
Ian Wragg
Wake up before it’s too late?
If you remove well less than a hundred politicians from Westminster who actually support what you have written.
You end up with the can’t, won’t,don’t brigade who are actually scared s###less on pressure from all the congregation of the Green Church of humanity who might be swayed to support them maybe. This is what we have got, all of them too ignorant, too incompetent and too arrogant to admit they are wrong. That is why the main artery of building this country, power and energy, are severly restricted almost blocked. Other countries can see it and have ignored the iffy data and are still burning coal and gas in large quantities.
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
And in other news India seems to have massive Covid problems but flights from there have not been stopped, unlike their neighbours.
Boris is due to visit shortly to discuss trade deals. Is the U.K. government putting politics above the nations health. Increasingly looks like that to me.
April 17, 2021
Nig 1
“Boris is due to visit shortly to discuss trade deals. Is the U.K. government putting politics above the nations health. Increasingly looks like that to me.”
…not exactly. What he’s doing, as he always does, is putting businessman’s profit before the nation’s health.
April 17, 2021
You canāt think the govt. EVER cared about our health.
Surely?
I do hope Boris is calculating his carbon footprint.
April 17, 2021
Everhopeful
“I do hope Boris is calculating his carbon footprint.”
Him and his ilk don’t have to, they’re privileged to a certain degree of hypocrissy.
The real problem with him is his methane footprint, what with all the BS.
April 17, 2021
+1š
April 17, 2021
Nig 1 – – Didn’t a certain Mr Cameron tell India there was “No Limit” to the amount that could come here? Our population ( i.e. people like US ) is clearly expendable – to make way for the rest of the world, who our govt see as a higher priority – – And we already have to provide for Hong Kong millions and anyone who turns up in a dinghy to Dover. PP and Dan the invisible immigration man done NOTHING – welcome one and all – umlimited cash, healthcare, houses and everything else for anyone !!!!
April 17, 2021
I do not think the true cost of so called green energy has ever been properly calculated or publicised, so we seem to have huge decisions being made on our future generating capacity being made on so called assumptions.
April 17, 2021
The Government knows full well that the western economies are about to implode.
We are going to get seriously poor.
Greenism a a ruse to make it look like getting poor was for our own good and – seeing as we all love Greta and can’t criticise her – our own idea.
CV-19 is the great reckoning. China do not owe us compensation as they have paid up front and in spades.
They sustained our credit fueled standard of living with their own slave labour. Now the purchasing power shifts from West to East. Sir John tells us about home reared food being our strength – well lamb goes to the highest global bidder in the same was as food from poor countries goes to richer ones in any other time.
Seen the price of a crab sandwich lately ?
———
Credit combined with a global population explosion is what is killing the environment. Not only are their more people but many undeserving are able to spend far more than they’ve ever earned or are likely to repay.
Plastic is killing the sea for sure. It’s just not the same plastic that is mention in the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy which I watched last week.
April 17, 2021
I do not think the true cost of any energy provision has ever been properly calculated or published.
For example, why did we spend blood and treasure in the two Gulf wars …
April 17, 2021
Dixie, We do know the true cost of the energy we use. It’s the price we pay! Overall the natural fuel businesses pay tax massively so we should, strictly, remove those taxes from the total, of course. However if (supposedly) green energy pays the same net taxes the comparison will stand.
April 17, 2021
Alan Jutson
Totally correct
April 17, 2021
The cost of your Brexit was properly calculated and you permanently damaged the country anyway.
In any case the cost of tackling catastrophic man made climate change is
irrelevant – because the cost of not tackling it is far worse.
You just need to look at what a barney you all have over a few migrants in a dinghy to realise how much youād all love dealing with a few million climate change refugees instead.
April 17, 2021
Trying to escape EU France for some reason. I can’t fathom why.
April 18, 2021
Andy, If your echo chamber “costings” were accurate, the entire world would be clamouring to become subject states of the EU. They aren’t – because your (unstated) figures are imaginary (what-would-have-beens).
And there is no proof of even “man made climate change”, still less CAGW. The GCMs are tuned to eliminate natural climate change, so assume that short duration changes are man made.
April 17, 2021
A typical Lifelogicās comment: Can we please have some justification for your āusing wind farm electricity to split water up is hugely wasteful & economic insanityā. Electrolysis is clean and easy to perform (remember your secondary school physics experiment). As for the economic insanity, show your maths please to prove your point as it might be far easier to store hydrogen for future use than wind turbine-produced electricity.
April 17, 2021
Actually.
The only thing we need to remember from school …
Is āAnimal Farmā.
Never mind equal…some animals will be a lot colder than those who have kept the oil and coal for themselves.
April 17, 2021
And it all started with the Boss being chased away……just saying!
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
Hefner – Yes, another well thought out comment from Lifelogic.
Your school experiment was exactly that – an experiment to demonstrate a process. To repeat it at a commercial level would be a massively expensive and impractical undertaking.
What is your experience on storing hydrogen?
Did you find the smaller molecular size of hydrogen made it incredibly difficult to maintain leak tight high pressure storage cylinders and low pressure distribution pipework?
Yes, I found that too. Our losses were significant.
April 17, 2021
The best way of storing Hydrogen, is to make the Molecule bigger by mixing it with carbon.
We already have this storage method in the form of petrol, coal, and natural gas.
This is the best way of storing energy, and as carbon is not a problem we should carry on using these forms.
I am still waiting for any real scientific evidence that shows co2 is a major problem.
I will not be voting for any party that believes in this fake news alarmist nonsense.
April 17, 2021
+1
April 18, 2021
Syd, I easily accept I have no practical experience in storing hydrogen. But Air Liquide Ltd seems to be a company that since 1902 might have learned a couple of things on the topics.
April 17, 2021
Hefner
You miss the point entirely.
April 17, 2021
Electrolysis of water is at best 70-80% efficient. Further energy is then required to compress hydrogen to 700bar pressure for vehicle use. The vehicle fuel cell is then 60% efficient and the electric motors about 90%.
Almost all hydrogen is made from natural gas because it is far cheaper than electrolysis.
That said, I would prefer hydrogen fuel over batteries for vehicles. At least it has a decent energy density. It can be made directly from nuclear reactor heat, without going through the inefficient electricity generation route.
April 17, 2021
This is rubbish. Using free energy harvested by wind farms and with free seawater as the feedstock, electrolysis is undeniably a very cheap way to generate green hydrogen, with large amounts of pure oxygen as a valuable by product. The same free energy can be used to compress the hydrogen and power the vehicles to transport it into the distribution network.
Japan has chosen to take the green hydrogen road to power it’s cars, with a plan to achieve transition in ten years
April 18, 2021
Rubbish, Sakara, naturally occurring oil and gas are just as “free” as seawater, and windmill generated electricity is not free at all. Industrial processes cost money!
April 18, 2021
Energy from wind farms is not free. Otherwise we wouldn’t have paid over Ā£160/MWh to offshore wind farms in 2020.
April 17, 2021
Why don’t you show your economic costings then, Hefner? Whilst you struggle with that one (or obfuscate as normal) you can simply use current domestic bills. When H2 is down to 3p per kWhr (as natural gas is, distributed to your house) then it may be economic to convert to hydrogen (provided the capital cost is not high either).
April 18, 2021
After you, NickC, show me the economic costings of the coal, oil and gas (extraction, refinery, transport, even possibly environmental damage, and what people like you consider as inexistent subsidies to these industries). I can already tell you that you will have to look a bit further than your current domestic bills. You are just a bit funny looking through the wrong end of your opera glasses.
April 18, 2021
Even the Climate Change Committee puts the cost of green electrolyzed hydrogen at three times that of blue steam reformed hydrogen from methane. And the cost of electricity from separating the CO2 in methane, liquefying it and shoving it under the North Sea is three times the cost of just burning the methane in a CCGT . Re. CCC Technical Report.
April 17, 2021
A million more migrants than first thought over the last ten years of Tory rule. Ooops !
What’s that done for our carbon footprint, I wonder ?
———–
Why wasn’t India on the Red list ? Their mutation has been known about for ages.
The one and only thing Boris has done right (the vaccine roll out) is about to be derailed. Everybody back into lockdown.
This is shit, John. Really shit.
April 17, 2021
Migration is all about āGlobal equalityā.
We must share our success with the less successful…hand it all over!
Thatās why the powers that-have-no-right-to-be sit on their hands whistling.
They are under orders!
April 17, 2021
I wonder when Tory voters are going to wake up and realise the Tory Party is THE party of HIGH and UNSUSTAINABLE IMMIGRATION.
April 17, 2021
Mike Wilson
Oh we have woke – up.
Next general election millions will be voting against immigration, forced conversion to scam technology, tax rises, green crap….and so on.
There will be no mercy at the ballot box.
April 18, 2021
I am still looking for a party thats pro GB, pro lower taxes, anti-green, anti-HS2
April 17, 2021
India is becoming a blind-spot for the Conservatives. I suspect that Boris would quite happily see us colonised.
April 17, 2021
An additional one million people they didn’t know about must lower the GDP per capita , and put further doubt about the economics of mass immigration.
April 17, 2021
The NHS is responsible for the vaccine rollout – but the government is taking credit. The rollout, run by the NHS, does not have NHS anywhere in its name.
The NHS is taking the blame for the governmentās failed test and trace. This does have NHS in the name even though it is run by the Tory party.*
* Brought to you in association with friends of friends of friends, who owe my sisterās mate a favour.
April 17, 2021
I’m not going to defend the government even when they do deserve it. Have that rather silly one on me, Andy.
(It can’t be all things good = NHS and all things bad = Government. It just can’t.)
April 18, 2021
Andy, The vaccine rollout is primarily due to private businesses (Moderna, Pfizer, Astra-Zeneca, and all their subcontractors), some of which has been subsidised by the UK government (ie the taxpayer). Not by the NHS.
Indeed NHS management has been a woeful failure – failed to properly plan for a pandemic; failed to keep treating regular illnesses; failed to ensure resilience in the NHS; failed to ensure security of supplies; failed to be flexible; failed to retain newly retired people; etc. NHS management has been a catastrophic failure.
April 17, 2021
What new and interesting observations from GWF!
Not forgetting the minced bats and birds in this eco rubbish
We had windmills…and water mills…and horse/mule mills ( whoops methane).
Nobody said ever…āNah donāt letās use oil….weāll stick with whaling, wind and water and pack up coal mining!ā.
When does the tinder box get resurrected?
April 17, 2021
Follow the money. Wealthy landowners have been making massive amounts of money out of wind farms. This whole green religion is a money-making scam for the already wealthy. Environmental issues that are achievable arenāt addressed because thereās no money to be made from it. For example, removing plastic waste from our seas, cleaning polluted rivers, conserving fish stocks, protecting rain forests and reducing the human population.
We are told we have to replace our gas boilers and switch to electric vehicles but nobody answers the question about affordability. Even if we achieved it, what difference would it make? The largest polluters like China, USA and India continue to increase their pollution levels.
This Government is riding the environmental bandwagon with no one daring to challenge their policies. They seem to believe the public is behind them but what the public isnāt being told is the huge cost they will incur with high energy costs and being priced off the roads.
Where a difference could be made is investing in science to develop a viable clean energy solution.
I suggest you speak to Matt Ridley or look at his website. He has been raising concerns about wind farms for years.
April 17, 2021
The GWPF also tell us:
https://www.thegwpf.com/high-wind-subsidies/?mc_cid=9f3ba3fc1b&mc_eid=7aaad54516
These subsidies are obscene because of other reasons than just the inflated costs to us the public, given that windfarms are unreliable and contribute very little to our energy supply, while needing some form of fuel generated backups to keep our lights on.
It’s bad enough that these windmills clutter up the countryside and offshore locations – That is obscene too.
The life of these windmills is I believe around 10 years, but their maintenance costs are high, while their disposal at the end of life is another problem waiting to be resolved – just like spent nuclear fuel – because they currently just get carted away to lie in some vast open storage area to rot.
We haven’t even spoken about their climate footprint, which IMVHO far exceeds any benefit they provide.
Despite the RSPB knowing all too well that many birds are killed by windmills, they keep their pc credentials intact by keeping quiet. Another charity unfit for purpose.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-rspb-wind-farms-and-a-change-of-direction/
The whole subject of wind farms is obscene.
April 17, 2021
In 1979 the Conservatives were arguing about the necessity to remove the burden of nationalised industries off the shoulders off enterprise to enable our country to flourish, for we were being economically crippled by their inefficiencies. 40 years later we have a Conservative Government pilling on ‘green’ energy costs and economically crippling our country.
April 17, 2021
UK onshore and offshore total turbines 10962 over 2621 sites
Cost of UK subsidy in the hundreds of billions ā actual unknown
Cost of UK domestic green /environment tax ā circa annual Ā£200+ per household
Passed on lower domestic household bills ā ZERO ZERO ZERO
(so who’s getting all the money)
April 17, 2021
Glen Cullen
“so whoās getting all the money”
…….big (usually foreign) businesses that own the windfarms, and successfully lobbied government for the subsidy. Great isnt it.
April 17, 2021
There are quite a few things tied up in this one: not just electricity supply, but private ownership questions too.
I have no claims to expertise but it does seem as an interested observer, and I should perhaps declare an interest, being a co-proprietor of a Solar energy company, that wind must be the least efficient of all the ‘Green’ methods of power generation. First there is the huge ecological cost of installing windmills, whether on or offshore, then there is the indisputable fact that in extended periods of very cold weather, caused by static high barometric pressure, there is no wind, at the very time you most want it. Then there are the loud cries of joy from Scotch and welsh landowners when someone suggests they might erect a windfarm on their hitherto worthless acres. I hasten to say I see nothing wrong with them enjoying their good luck. My only criticism is of the Government that pours out all this money without having done proper due diligence on its likely effectiveness compared with other means of producing electricity, and, most importantly with no apparent concern for the extra cost it is piling on consumers just so it can keep up with the Green Joneses and feel good about itself. It is also much easier than doing the difficult things that really need doing, like fixing the NHS, Education and Tax systems.
April 18, 2021
Solar offers little panacea either. Very limited production in winter when demand is highest, and essentially none at peak demand hour. Low capacity factors in our cloudy northern location. Nuisance peaks at midday in summer when demand is more limited.
April 17, 2021
Yes, our climate is warming but for over the past 40 years no serious thought has been given to our power requirements. We have dithered and fiddled about handing over control of our electricity supply to the French and squandering tax payers money on wind farms which are grossly unreliable in our island weather. Furthermore we have allowed and are still allowing our power stations to wear out without replacement and coupling all this with an all out drive to kill the motor industry and bring the country to a stand-still with electric engines that cannot be recharged.
All in a drive to reduce world-wide CO2. We are behaving like a small boy peeing into the Atlantic off Lands End and expecting to see a difference in the height of the next high tide!!
Get real, and aim to bring Asia, China, India etc on side and then set the target dates, giving time for industry to develop alternative power and propulsion. All that is being done at present is pandering to a bunch of ‘fruit cakes’ who would like to change our diet to stop cows farting and the purveyors of ‘doom and gloom’.
April 17, 2021
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
If wind is cheaper than coal, why are end user electricity prices so high in wind dependant countries and so low in coal dependant countries?
April 17, 2021
I understand Steve Baker is intent on challenging government over expensive energy but letās see if that does any good. Itās going to destroy our prosperity unless checked, and youāve been aware of that for some years now Mr Redwood.
April 17, 2021
This is an issue Iām concerned about. Iām all for green electricity. Iām all for encouraging growth of these industries in this country. That might mean subsidies or tax breaks or protection while the technology is developed. But itās got to work and itās got to be at least neutral for the rest of the economy.
However, if we end up with an energy base that is more expensive now, we are stealing money from ourselves and that is before we consider the potential resource misallocation implied by government support. The new green tech makes money for us by making energy cheaper or by allowing us to export the new technology. Are we going to achieve either?
If BoJo thinks that the country is will support green ventures out of a sense of green patriotism, he is misjudging a significant quantity of the electorate who are more interested in their personal finances and others for whom green issues appear intellectually important but do not stir the soul.
The economics of this need to be right. There needs to be more scrutiny. The opposition will not provide it as they are content to spend money on green issues until thereās nothing left. It can only come from the Tories.
April 17, 2021
The problem is Boris Johnson. IMO the topic should have been titled; ‘The Cost of Boris Johnson’
Boris Johnson answers to big business and hates car drivers.
His agenda is to bolster big business profits by forcing people to convert to technology that doesn’t work and enslave millions into debt in the process. And to think; they have the bare-faced hypocrissy to talk about ‘lobbying’ ?
He has brought about much anger which will be evident at the next general election when millions will kick him and his party out for good. Voters will be making it personal, including myself.
April 17, 2021
Wind turbines put out less energy in their lifetime than is used to build, install, maintain and remove them. When you put them out at sea this get’s much worse as installation, maintenence and removal is far more difficult and expensive. They are a massive scam just as Germany is finding out with their huge wind turbine farms.
April 18, 2021
My thoughts as well.
Interestingly no one has yet put out any figures to prove otherwise.
April 17, 2021
For a take on the damage to welfare flowing from climate policies please read Lomborg’s (peer reviewed) article from last year ,Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies in Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162520304157
April 17, 2021
It is impossible to understand why Conservative MPs continue to support a leader wishing to do so much damage to so many people, whether SARS-CoV2 policy or climate policy.
April 17, 2021
you don’t include economy, transport, health, military, Foreign Aid….education, science …..shall I stop there?
April 17, 2021
Its about time we voted this green government out of office
April 18, 2021
Indeed, Fred, if this government stopped splurging our money all over the place, we’d be quite well off. Perhaps we should have a new law prohibiting governments from giving our cash away at all?
April 18, 2021
C, Thanks a lot for providing the access to Lomborgās paper. It would be good if people were taking the time to read it.
April 17, 2021
I start to lose the will to live when i continuously read comments justified by their view that the now is the future just demonstrating their ignorance of the vast amount of research and development in these areas. Combined air and ground pump with far cheaper boring costs linked to the photo voltaics as an example. New builds in some countries have these from the start. The U.K. is involved in a multi country research group on heat pump technology.
An immediate negative from Lifelogic and others about battery size. Battery technology is a vast field on its own and producing rapid advances. I think the new Merc has a range well in excess of 400 miles which is coming into my distance range, obviously price and recharge is not, yet but I recall so many peopleās negative āno hopeā comments.
As for subsidies and we have seen this with wind power. They were the drivers but now economies of scale, techno advances etc mean it is now becoming subsidy negative.
In China there is a massive subsidy programme to switch from coal boilers to heat pumps. Subsidies will pump (no pun intended) prime the future and one day we will get pay back. Short termism based on cost issues alone must be resisted.
April 18, 2021
In China, the heat pumps are driven by coal-fired electricity.
In the UK, there will be outrage when people are told they cannot replace their gas boiler, and they must spend Ā£18k on an ineffective and expensive to run heat pump system
April 18, 2021
MNig1, It is you who is ignorant, not Lifelogic and other commenters.
The government has no plans to increase UK electricity production up to 2040. So you know that their policies to convert homes to electric heating (even ground source heat pumps require 1kW of electricity for 4kW of heat; whilst in winter conditions air source is almost pure electricity), and cars to be powered by batteries (charged from the Grid’s non existent extra capacity), are fake.
And neither your “negative” subsidies for windmills, nor your significantly better traction batteries are true. At best there are marginal improvements which only go to show how useless both Wind and BEVs are – so unlikely to be widely adopted without compulsion.
April 17, 2021
The basic problem is faith in future catastrophic climate change/global warming has replaced faith in Christianity. Instead of the Bible, we now have faith in the forecasts of GIGO computer programs.
April 17, 2021
With the diatribes from both sides of the argument, it would be lovely to have some facts and figures. I appreciate it is not possible to exactly compare but, it should surely be possible to come up with something like:
Cost to build a new coal fired power station to generate X megawatts.
Life span of that power station – cost per year.
Cost of coal.
Cost of maintenance.
Cost of getting rid of carbon dioxide (given this seems to be assumed, these days)
Carbon footprint of construction.
Cost to build onshore wind turbines to generate X megawatts.
Life span of those turbines – cost per year.
Cost of maintenance.
Carbon footprint of construction.
Surely it ought not to be beyond the wit of man to come up with some sort of figures so a comparison can be made. Does government ever do this – or do they just blindly follow the ‘wind turbine good, coal fired power station bad’ thinking?
April 17, 2021
+1
It beggars belief that there is no simple breakdown of costs so that we can see the cost of wind power without subsidies. All such analyses we can find via Google are politically driven, including the GWPF article.
Why is it we have invested so heavily in this route, seemingly without any independent cost analysis?
I think when the truth is finally revealed there will be outrage, which is why it never will be.
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
Levelized Cost of Energy approaches a basis for comparison as it incorporates cost to build, produce and the value of energy generated. The LCOE varies with geography, Lazards have produced LCOE figures for the USA of (US$ per MWh)
utility solar 36
Wind onshore 40
Wind offshore 86
Gas (combined cycle) 59
Coal 112
Nuclear 164
Others have come up with different figures and for different countries, eg for Germany some figures show coal lower than offshore wind at 99 euro/MWh vs 138.
I don’t think you will find a single “golden” calculation and comparison that everyone agrees with.
April 18, 2021
Dixie, If your figures were true why would the rest of the world (from Germany to China) be building all those Coal fired power stations rather than the (supposedly) cheaper Solar and Wind? Moreover your LCOE costs of Wind and Solar do not include the cost of the back-up for when the wind doesn’t blow, and sun doesn’t shine.
April 18, 2021
+1
April 18, 2021
@NickC They are not “my” figures, there were produced by Lazard. I merely pointed out the LCOE might be a useful starting point for comparison. I even pointed out that these figures vary by analysts and geography.
Perhaps you could offer an alternative basis of comparisson, one that provides a fuller assessment of costs to enable unbiased assessments.
BYW I suspect your backup costs could go away, along with the curtailment costs and large CFD payments once grid energy storage becomes more widespread to soak up surplus power and cover the gaps owing to intermittency. So your calculation method would need to include allowance for that.
April 18, 2021
We know those figures are nonsense, simply by looking at actual electricity prices across the US and the technology used to generate the marginal sources of supply. Utility solar like Ivanpah has gone bankrupt. States that rely on fracked gas have the lowest power costs, which have undercut coal as the next cheapest. Wind and solar depend heavily on tax breaks and subsidies to survive.
April 18, 2021
@Mark – who is “we” and where is all this documented. I tried to point out, obviously too clumsily that LCOE is used as a comparator but different people give different numbers which vary anyway by geography.
So what is you golden comparator that everybody agrees with?
April 18, 2021
You can find the figures for actual electricity prices and the composition of generation state by state at the EIA website. They show that gas and coal are much cheaper, while states with large amounts of renewables and imports like California pay to prices.
April 19, 2021
@Mark – All that says is that the Lazrd analysis was too high level, it doesn’t demonstrate that LCOE is or is not a realistic measure, simply that people misuse data.
So the question remains at to what is a realistic comparative measure
April 19, 2021
What is wrong with proper free market prices? The Low Carbon Contracts Company has data that shows that the average market value (Intermittent Market Reference Price) of offshore wind production in 2020 was just Ā£34.54/MWh, yet their average CFD revenue was Ā£128.11/MWh higher because of subsidies under the CFDs.
April 20, 2021
@Mark – What makes you think I support excessive subsidies that translate into excessive profits for companies?
What are “proper” free market prices? Are they those that incorporate true costs? For example, do the cheap prices for Chinese goods on the “propoer” free market include the costs of lost businesses, industries and jobs in the UK?
April 17, 2021
More Government ‘virtual signaling’. Is it just an excuse or a delaying tactic?
Nuclear works, even though thanks to Gordon Brown we have to buy it in from foreign adversary’s (He said there was no need for it in the UK). Hydrogen works on oh so many levels, as an instant work around and a long term solution – ask TfL or even Sadiq khan they use it daily. Honda and Toyota have gone that way for transport, along with the Wrightbus Company(The bringer of the London Bus). BMW has announced there next generation of cars will use it instead of Battery. There is an endless list of Hydrogen support, even the EU is chucking money at it and little ‘ole’ Portugal is building production facilities and laying in the infrastructure. The UK in all this ‘lets punish the stupid taxpayer with a mountain of subsidies incase the wind blows’
Its just like selling HS2 – old defunct tech before it gets going. Make a noise, virtual signal we wont be in power to suffer our comeuppance.
April 17, 2021
+1
April 17, 2021
I searched the Government web site for Greenhouse Gas effect and got this https://www.gov.uk/guidance/climate-change-explained
It’s all based on a 19th theory it seems. No justification using modern scientific understanding of radiation and thermodynamics. There is no dispute that the climate is changing and CO2 levels have increased but is it burning fossil fuel that is causing it ? You would expect a rather detailed justification to spend Ā£6bn a year and the capacity market Ā£1bn a year than a 19th century theory. Which is not justified in practice. anyway.
CO2 is released from natural storage ( trapped over millions of years ) as the plant warms. Our contribution is a fraction. But we do generate a lot more heat than we did before the industrial period started and the population increased. Human made pollution and destruction of plant life ( trees in particular) is impacting the environment at an ever increasing rate. Off shore wind turbines will still end up producing heat once the power is used by consumers to heat there homes just like any other power station.
There are other documents on the GOV site related to climate. I did note that it is projected we will import more electricity over the coming years. Yet another thing to make some Politicians look good at the expense of the ordinary citizen
April 17, 2021
We get it. None of you believe in man made climate change – and the catastrophic damage it is doing.
None of you believed in a border down the Irish Sea but it turns out you were wrong about that too.
My question to the climate change deniers is simple: what if you are wrong?
You have demonstrably been proven wrong about a lot of things in recent years. What if you are wrong about this too?
There is no Planet B – and if the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are right, and you are not, then you are literally risking the lives of your grandchildren.
So what is wrong with erring on the side of caution? We have to move to renewables anyway so why not now? Sure there is a cost but there is a cost of not doing it too.
I donāt buy insurance because I expect my house to burn down. I buy insurance because my house might burn down. You are all simply reckless.
So I ask again. What if you are wrong? And, āIām notā isnāt an answer. What if you are? Happy to risk your grandkidsā lives on a hunch?
April 17, 2021
What if we spend trillions and it only reduces the predicted increase by a negligible amount?
April 17, 2021
Well I do believe in man made climate change but I don’t think anything will be done about it. The planet is going to burn whether it’s us or the Chinese that do it.
And the proof in my point is that you and your family, Andy, are still consuming far FAR more than the poorest on this planet (who still manage to subsist) and far more than mine.
Strip yourself back to a three bed semi on a Ā£60 a week shop and then come back and lecture us.
April 18, 2021
Andy, the answer is nuclear.
I see what is happening out at sea and get gradually horrified. What is the ecological cost of thousands of square miles of wind turbines out there? What cost to the fishing industry and shipping?
When they site a wind turbine at sea they set off an explosive charge to clear unexploded WW2 ordnance. This deafens whales and other seal life for miles around. It’s hard to think of anything more offhandedly cruel.
It’s also not clear if the cost includes the decommissioning cost. These are private companies, how are we sure the sites will be returned to pristine condition in the future/
April 18, 2021
Andy, Quite clearly the mild global warming the world has experienced in the last 150 years has been beneficial, and certainly not “catastrophic” as you claim. Predictions based on your favourite climate alarmists have all failed to come true over the last 30 years. Just like your predictions about Brexit.
As ever you want to use my money to obviate your perceived risks. You merely insist that your perceptions of risks are correct. Not good enough. I think there are far more likely risks – world wars, disease, impact by large meteorites, etc – to spend our money on. Living is a risk, Andy. We cannot hide away all the time.
April 17, 2021
Remove the subsidy
Put a massive tax on them. After all, they are taking the wind and the sunlight for free.
Remember taxes cure every ill known to man,
April 17, 2021
I have no dogmatic objection to renewable energy, if only it were no more expensive than conventional energy. I would even be willing to pay a bit ore now in order to kick-start the industry and help it become cost-competitive. But this is not happening. worse still, barely HALF of the government’s spending on wind turbines actually goes to UK companies! We are basically spending BILLIONS to subsidise FOREIGN companies. This is utter madnesss. Another Boris betrayal.
If we absolutely must have non CO2-producing power stations, then the best bet would be to go for the proposed Rolls Royce SMRs – Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactors. These would be built in the UK and would create an industry with massive export opportunities. Biden has already approved a similar initiative in the US, so once again we are going to be left behind and lose out on a golden opportunity to create a world-beating British company. Yet another Boris betrayal!
April 17, 2021
The whole “science” behind global warming is seriously flawed for a start and has been manipulated by careful “data” selection and omission.
Time to bin it in its entirety. Pollution is a different matter which may be addressed by better means than destroying life as we knew it. How much additional pollution has been generated by exporting our manufacturing to China? Not just directly but through reliance on poor quality products which require replacement far too often.
April 18, 2021
I wonder whether anybody has ever looked at the difference in energy prices (gas and electricity) for domestic and industrial use in the UK, in continental European countries, and farther afield. Please note that in most countries there is a difference in VAT rate between domestic and industrial energy. There might be āa lesson to be learntā about how industrial policies might (or not) be helped in different parts of the world.
April 18, 2021
I downloaded the data from the Low Carbon Contracts Company website using this data:
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/data-portal/dataset/actual-cfd-generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions
which includes the daily amounts paid to each CFD, the amount of generation per day, and the average market prices applicable to the CFD. My spreadsheet analysis confirms the GWPF summary figures. I have quoted various figures from this analysis in some of my comments.
Looking at charts of the data on daily generation and prices it becomes clear that we get some extended periods with very little generation at all: at such times, prices often soar and can even be above the already very high CFD strike prices. Windy conditions tend to produce very low market prices, and consequently very high levels of subsidy, both because of the large difference between CFD strike prices and market prices, and also because of the close to maximum amounts of generation, which run to about twice the average. It is also clear that despite a degree of geographic spread between Liverpool Bay, the North Sea off Hull and Essex and the Moray Firth, there is a high degree of correlation in the output of the various wind farms.